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Professional football clubs in England face serious financial and operational difficulties and challenges. Our survey reveals that less than a quarter of football clubs responding had an internal audit committee. Even where clubs had an audit committee, almost one third of those clubs report there being no regular board review of risk assessment reports. The need to undertake risk assessment is now accepted as part of good corporate governance. The collapse of the ITV Digital agreement, which led to Football League clubs losing significant revenue, forcing some into administration, simply illustrates the reasoning behind the practice (following the Turnbull Report). Football clubs (and the companies that own them) need improved corporate governance practice, financial planning and risk assessment procedures; 76 percent of clubs responded that they would benefit from a guide to good corporate governance and 80 percent that they would find advice on Company Law useful.

The earnings management (EM) research on the impact of firm’s multi-nationality and reputation on the earnings’ quality is limited, particularly in the context of emerging economies like India. In India, the corporate ownership model is “Promoter-dominated shareholder model” wherein companies have global operations. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the EM practices of corporate enterprises in India about multi-nationality, reputation and related determinants.

The present study employs DeAngelo model for calculating discretionary accruals for detecting EM. Multi-nationality, reputation and related determinants are measured as accounting indices. The statistical tools applied for testing the accuracy of results include correlation and regression analysis, t-test and descriptive statistics, like arithmetic mean, median and standard deviation.

The results show that multi-nationality is the driving force for EM and significantly affects the accounting choices of management in the sample units. The firm’s reputation and other related determinants, except size, vary with accruals. The earnings behavior of the corporate is influenced by other factors, like growth and leverage as well.

A total of 12 units out of top 25 units, taken for the study, met the sampling requirements. So, the present study is confined to 12 profit-making private listed companies in India. These companies constitute a significant size of BSE’s market capitalization for completeness of data; still the size and diversity of units can be extended for further study. The period in the study is of five years (2003–2004 to 2007–2008) to find the effects of global recession on EM practices in India. Researchers may like to select a different time-period based on their objective.

The study draws new dimensions about the quality of financial reporting in case of global firms and with high-perceived reputation. The findings are of significance to standard setters and regulators, particularly for emerging economies, like India where companies have international operations. They are equally important for other companies that are based in economies with relatively mature corporate governance mechanisms because of common regulatory focal points.

It brings out the importance of financial reporting process of global corporations for shareholders’ value creation. It is likely to enrich the knowledge and understanding of the EM phenomenon in developing economies like India.

It is an original paper, which highlights the EM motivation about multi-nationality, reputation and related variables in Indian corporate.

The mutualisation of two English third division football clubs in 2001 and the creation of a large number of supporters' trusts make it timely to consider whether there is a case for mutualisation of football clubs. This paper assesses whether mutuality would be of economic benefit for clubs, drawing heavily on the experience of mutuals in the financial sector. Our conclusions are mixed. The economic case rests on the distinctive feature of customer loyalty to a club, presuming this to be much stronger than loyalty to a financial institution. However, club members in a mutual must expect to be called upon to provide financial support.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of independent directors’ diligence in restraining earnings management practices in the Indian context.

It employs a panel data analysis to test the association of earnings management with the diligence of independent directors.

The results suggest that the diligence of independent directors has a significant impact on earnings management. The findings support the agency theory and provide evidence of the role played by the board processes in restricting earnings management.

This study is important for the regulators as it highlights the significance of independent directors’ diligence in producing higher quality financial statements, thereby creating the real economic value of companies. This is the first article that explores the impact of independent directors’ diligence on earnings management practices particularly in the context of an emerging economy, like India in the light of new Companies Act 2013 and revised Clause 49 of the Listing Agreement, 2014 by Securities and Exchange Board of India.

Income smoothing is exercised by the management for numerous reasons. Growth opportunities available to a firm are a very important reason but an undermined area for income smoothing by the management. This paper aims to review the income smoothing practices in corporate enterprises in India with respect to growth pattern of a firm as measured by investment opportunity set (IOS) defined in Fudenberg and Tirole’s (1995) model. In India, the main corporate ownership model is promoter dominated shareholders model. This makes the study unique highlighting the role of board for income smoothing. The study contributes by extending this model to earnings per share definition with IOS by a firm. The study also investigates the level of income smoothing and its impact on the informativeness of earnings in regard to IOS.

The enterprises have been chosen on the basis of their performance in terms of profit generation [profit after tax (PAT) performance] for the year 2007-2008 as per Economic Times October 2007 Survey in a private sector. The period to be covered is from 2003-2004 to 2007-2008. 2007-2008 has been a year of global recession which is an indicative reason for income smoothing by the corporate. DeAngelo model has been used for calculating discretionary accruals and detecting income smoothing. Fudenberg and Tirole’s (1995) model has been specifically used in studying the relationship between IOS and income smoothing. Specifically, we use three variables to construct an index of the IOS of each firm, market-to-book assets, market-to-book equity and the earnings price ratio.

An examination of the units shows that there is smoothing behaviour exercised by them. Analytical results of anticipatory smoothing and the IOS propose that concern about job security creates an incentive for managers to smooth earnings in consideration of both current and future relative performance. More explicitly, the extent of smoothing is expected to be negatively related to the level of IOS in periods of low current/high future performance and positively related to the level of IOS in periods of high current/low future performance. The empirical results confirmed our predictions.

The sampling requirements were met by 12 units only of top 25 units, taken for the study. So, the present study was confined to only 12 profit-making corporate enterprises in the private sector in India, leaving all other enterprises. Though these companies constitute a significant size of Bombay Stock Exchange’s market capitalization for completeness of data, still the size can be extended for further study. The present study has not considered public sector units and closely held companies. The scope of the units can be extended to other units in diverse sectors with different size and scale of operations. It would further verify the present discussion and also provide future enlightenment on the issue of income smoothing. The magnitude of discretionary accruals has been analysed in regard to potential earnings management. But, discretionary accruals are not directly available. They are calculated as a proxy using a model. Estimating discretionary accruals is still a tedious task.

The results clearly indicate that growth opportunities available to a firm are potential indicative of a firm’s income smoothing behaviour. The findings of this study are important to standard setters and regulators, as it highlights the need for an effective regulation for detecting income smoothing. There is a strong need to have well-defined policies and regulatory mechanism with respect to prevent and detect income manipulation practices at an early stage. Standard-setting bodies can consider the attributes of assets and liabilities and changes in them also with the fundamental process of measurement of income. In short, the evidence argues for a revenue/expense and asset/liability view of earnings, rather than the cash-flow view of earnings. The findings of this study are important to policymakers and other stakeholders, as it highlights the need for an effective board in discharging their role qualitatively, rather than quantitatively.

It brings out the importance of fair accounting for shareholders.

It is an original paper which highlights the income smoothing behaviour in Indian corporate enterprises in terms of growth opportunities available to them.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between environmental reporting and corporate governance attributes of companies in Australia.

The paper adopts a quantitative analysis approach. It examines the 2008 annual reports of the largest 100 Australian firms listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) to determine the amount of environmental reporting – these data are compared with various corporate governance measures.

Analysis found a significant positive relationship between the extent of environmental reporting and the proportions of independent and female directors on a board. The analysis did not, however, support a negative relationship between the extent of environmental reporting and institutional investors and board size as has been previously predicted, rather, it showed a positive relationship.

This paper offers insights to both regulators and company strategists. Regulators such as the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) could consider expanding its Corporate Governance Council guidelines to include consideration of the environment, which is increasingly considered to be an important aspect of corporate social responsibility, and one of the responsibilities of the board of directors. In addition, for companies which include a commitment to the environment in their mission and strategies, it suggests consideration of the impact of board structure and composition is important as both of these are shown to have a significant effect on the amount of environmental information disclosed by companies.

This paper aims to investigate the effect of foreign ownership on cost of debt financing in an emerging stock market.

Cost of debt is a function of foreign ownership. Control variables include state ownership, firm profitability, financial leverage, Tobin's Q, asset growth, firm size and asset tangibility. The research sample includes 3,263 observations from 405 firms listed in Vietnamese stock market during the period 2009–2017.

The authors find that foreign ownership negatively affects cost of debt and this effect is stronger in non-state-owned enterprises and financially constrained firms.

Prior research shows that ownership structure is a key determinant of debt financing cost in many developed markets. This paper contributes to the literature of emerging market finance by showing that foreign ownership reduces cost of debt financing.

Using a sample of 9,898 firm-year observations from 1,821 unique Chinese listed firms over the period from 2004 to 2019, this study aims to investigate whether the market rewards meeting or beating analyst earnings expectations (MBE).

The authors use an event study methodology to capture market reactions to MBE.

The authors document a stock return premium for beating analyst forecasts by a wide margin. However, there is no stock return premium for firms that meet or just beat analyst forecasts, suggesting that the market is skeptical of earnings management by these firms. This market underreaction is more pronounced for firms with weak external monitoring. Further analysis shows that meeting or just beating analyst forecasts is indicative of superior future financial performance. The authors do not find firms using earnings management to meet or just beat analyst forecasts.

The authors provide evidence of market underreaction to meeting or just beating analyst forecasts, with the market's over-skepticism of earnings management being a plausible mechanism for this phenomenon.

The findings of this study are informative to researchers, market participants and regulators concerned about the impact of analysts and earnings management and interested in detecting and constraining managers' earnings management.

The authors provide new insights into how the market reacts to MBE by showing that the market appears to focus on using meeting or just beating analyst forecasts as an indicator of earnings management, while it does not detect managed MBE. Meeting or just beating analyst forecasts is commonly used as a proxy for earnings management in the literature. However, the findings suggest that it is a noisy proxy for earnings management.

Customer loyalty is of growing interest to many service firms due to the many tangible and intangible benefits it offers them. However, building customer loyalty is challenging for many service firms. This study aims to examine the impact of corporate reputation on customer loyalty. It also assesses the moderating role of the firm's country of origin in this relationship.

Survey research design was used to collect data from 367 universal banks' customers. Data were analysed using structural equation modelling.

The findings shed light on several crucial aspects of corporate reputation that influence customer loyalty. Specifically, signals of corporate social responsibility, corporate credibility, product attributes and relationship marketing were found to have a substantial impact on customer loyalty. Additionally, the study uncovers a noteworthy insight that the firm's country of origin plays a moderating role in the relationship between corporate reputation and customer loyalty, particularly in the context of the banking sector.

This research stands out due to its utilisation of signalling theory, making it one of the pioneering works in the bank brand management literature. It presents a comprehensive corporate reputation framework and its profound implications for customer loyalty. Furthermore, the study underscores the significance of considering the strength of the country-of-origin effect in shaping customer loyalty relationships.

This study aims to investigate whether firms’ involvement in socially provocative business activities or businesses that are inconsistent with Shariah principles affect auditor’s perceived risk associated with the financial reporting information.

This study uses a median regression with measures that are consistent with prior literature. This study comprises of 11,799 firm-year observations obtained from MSCI environmental, sustainable and governance STATS database.

The results provide evidence indicating that auditors relatively charge higher audit fees for Shariah non-compliant firms except for firms that are involved with alcohol and gambling businesses. Firms that are involved in gambling activities report relatively lower audit fees, whereas firms with high involvement in alcohol business activities report non-significant relationship with audit fees.

The findings suggest that on average, ethical contextualisation on perceived acceptable behaviours is relatively consistent across beliefs and the severe lack of it has implications on auditors’ business risk assessment. However, as a social construct, the conception of ethical behaviour is highly dependent on the change in the societal values and therefore this explains the variance in the expected findings for gambling and alcohol business activities.

This study adds to the existing business risk literature, by examining the under-explored association between Shariah non-compliant risk and auditors’ perceived risk, measured by audit fees in a non-Muslim majority setting.